PITTSBURGH — Beyond the win, what the Toronto Blue Jays really needed Sunday was to unload on the Pittsburgh Pirates, ensuring an easy, low-leverage afternoon for their bullpen ahead of Monday’s significant doubleheader at the Baltimore Orioles.
Early on, they appeared to be on track for precisely that, with Ross Stripling cruising and RBI singles from Whit Merrifield in the second and Alejandro Kirk in the third followed by Cavan Biggio’s solo shot in the fourth opening up a 3-0 lead, with the promise of more.
But, since the 2022 Blue Jays seem to make everything harder than it needs to be, they once again found themselves grinding to the final out. Their lead didn’t survive the fifth, a pair of rallies were undermined by double-play grounders and David Phelps, Anthony Bass and Jordan Romano — working out of a major jam in the ninth — were each needed to make sure Teoscar Hernandez’s RBI single in the seventh stood as the difference in a 4-3 victory.
The Blue Jays just squeaked it out after Jack Suwinski opened the ninth with a single against the shift before Cal Mitchell’s comebacker to the mound deflected off Romano and put runners on the corners with none out. Pinch-runner Greg Allen promptly stole second before Romano rallied to strike out Josh VanMeter, Tucupita Marcano, and Kevin Newman to preserve the win.
A mostly pro-Blue Jays crowd of 14,903 roared as he recorded the final out.
In completing the sweep, the Blue Jays (73-59) moved to a season-best 14 games over .500 and guaranteed that they would head into the series in Baltimore at least 1.5 games up on the Orioles (71-61), who were hosting the Oakland Athletics.
Still, after using seven relievers in Saturday’s 4-1, bullpen-day win, including Yimi Garcia for 1.2 innings, and with Romano, Bass, Adam Cimber and Tim Mayza each pitching at least twice in the series, their bullpen isn’t in optimal condition for 18 innings Monday.
Julian Merryweather is with the team on the taxi squad and is expected to be added as the 29th man for the doubleheader, and the club may also option Casey Lawrence and recall Zach Pop to give the bullpen two additional power arms to work with.
Kevin Gausman and Jose Berrios are slated to start and the more they can minimize the load on the relievers, the better.
Stripling did his part Sunday and could easily have handed over a bigger lead after his six frames. But he issued a pair of walks in the fourth, including a non-competitive five-pitch base on balls with two outs to Cal Mitchell, before a Josh VanMeter flyball dropped in between Merrifield and Lourdes Gurriel Jr., in left-centre to narrow the Blue Jays lead to 3-2.
The next inning, Oneil Cruz’s freakish laser beam to centre tied the game. The Blue Jays then missed one chance to retake the lead in the sixth when Merrifield hit into an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded and nearly squandered another in the seventh when Vladimir Guerrero Jr., hit into another twin-kill. But Hernandez snuck a ball up the middle to bring in the go-ahead run before Bo Bichette was robbed by a Jack Suwinski diving catch in left to end the frame.
